This packaging and total "dumbing" down stuff is boring me. It reads like an
advocacy thread.
1. I want packages that I can verify the authenticity of the distribution
and of the files that are installed. Does tar do that? rpm, probably the
worst of the package "managers" does. When I lock down servers, rpm -q tells
me what's installed on yer average Linux box. I'd like this to be extended
to the base tarballs on NetBSD. What's so hard or wrong about doing this?
I'd prefer it if the *bsd's had the same ports/packages collection and the
same mechanisms for source and binary installation, but that's just me.
2. I want databases to be started & stopped correctly so I don't lose any
data and users' sessions cleanly disconnected. Does kill -<insert favorite
signal here> do that? In most cases, with most Unix databases I've had the
displeasure of looking after the answer is quite resoundingly "no".
3. I want orthagonal administration of a wide variety of systems because I
look after a wide variety of systems. Does NetBSD doing something just ever
so slightly different help the enterprise system administrator? No. I'd
prefer that we implement things better under the hood that operate exactly
the same at a user level (think ls and it's 20+ switches that are fairly
standard these days across even Linux and Solaris) FWIW, NetBSD's rc.d is
implemented better than any of the Linux distro's in my opinion and I've run
four of them in my time: slackware, redhat {4,5,6,7}, suse 6.3-7.0(++) and
Caldera 1.3,2.2,2.3,2.4 and now the LTP.
Get over it.
thanks,
Andrew van der Stock, ajv@greebo.net http://www.greebo.net
SAGE-AU President http://www.sage-au.org.au